Position of sax relative to the Microphone

[William Cingolani]

Sound goes into mic sounds good; Recorded Sound comes out not so good. Where do I put the mic in relation to the tenor sax? Internet recommendations tells me to place the mic 12 inches from the bell and half way up the bore near the left hand (the side holes on the horn have sound too) I see saxes with the mic infant of the bell attached to the bell. The ambient on the audient iD14 interface is set to about medium. Sound is not too loud coming through the earphones but I sound like I’m in a bucket sometimes.I suppose I’ll talk to the tech people at Sweetwater about the iD14 audient interface and mike position. I’m using a Royer 121 ribbon mic.

[William Cingolani]

My latest find re: Mic positions relative to saxophone. Look on Page 13. https://uwaterloo.ca/environment-computing/sites/ca.environment-computing/files/uploads/files/pro_mic_techniques.pdf

[Anonymous]

Interesting Document William – thanks for sharing.

I record using two different mic’s about 2 feet from the bell at about left hand height when playing the sax.

I’ve read the documents that came with both mic’s and they roughly compare to your document about optimum mic position.

The problem with mic’s is they behave differently in the acoustics of different rooms. Imho you just have to make the best of the room you record in.

My youngest daughter is studying a music tech’s course, which deals with all this sort of stuff, and she keeps telling me to record in the bed room which is more like a dead room compared to a room full of echos, which i presume messes with the recording.

I am just as in dark about recording stuff

[William Cingolani]

Thanks for the comments sxpoet. I’ll try two mics. I’ll also might try opening the window. That should wake the neighbors.

[William Cingolani]

sxpoet:I connected both mics, put up two ralex ProMax pads to block sound reflexion https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ProMAXCHA with one mike in one of these https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ReflexionX. I also opened the window and I put a new reed on the mouth piece. So to make a short story long the sound was a lot better. Thanks sxpoet for all the encouragement

[Anonymous]

Thanks William – Sharing information helps a lot, sometimes we can pick up stuff that works for us. But like i say, recordings an area i’m new to, in my case it’s trial an error.

[Anonymous]

Hi William, thanks for that interesting document. It may be good exercise for you to try using this analyzer tool in Audacity. By recording the same tune, with the mic in different positions for a comparative test. Perhaps just playing a range of notes from highest to lowest will suffice.

[Author]

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